Diary of a Drug Fiend

150 The Diary of a Drug Fiend August 20 I am so tired, so tired, so tired! ... My premonition was right about Lamus. There was a very unpleasant scene. We were both frightfully wretched when we got there. (I can’t get my hands and feet warm, and there’s something wrong with my writing). Peter Pan thought it best to remind him in a jocular way about his remark that we were to come when we needed him, and then introduced the subj ect of what we needed. But he took the words brutally out of our - mouths. “You needn't tell me what you need,” he said. “ The lack is only too obvious.” He said it in a non-committal way so that we couldn’t take offence; but we knew instinctively he meant brains. However, Peter stuck to his guns, like the game little devil he is. That’s why I love him. “Oh, yes, heroin,’’ said Lamus; “cocaine. We regret exceedingly to be out of it for the moment.” _ The brute seemed unconscious of our distress. He gave an imitation of an apologetic shop-walker. “ But let me show you our latest lines on morphine.” Cockie and I looked at each other wanly. Morphine would no doubt be better than nothing. And then, if you please, the beast pulled a review with a blue cover out of a revolving bookcase and read aloud a long poem. His intonation was so dramatic, he gave so vivid a picture that we sat spell-bound. It seemed as if he had long pincers twistedin our entrails, and were wrenching at them. He gave me the verses: when he had finished. ‘““You ought to paste these,” he said, ‘ ‘in your Magical Diary.” So I have. I hardly know why. There’s a sort of pleasure in torturing oneself. Is that it ?